Monday, September 23, 2013

This is Michael.
Michael's 26th birthday was in July.
He was living in California for the summer far away from friends and
family. His birthday was very uneventful
and he felt forgotten and uncelebrated (and with good reason).
His dad sent him a happy birthday text and his mom called him late that
night to ask him how his birthday went.
How do you think it went,
mom?!

Michael frequently brings up that no one cared about his
birthday. A week ago Saturday a group of
us were eating at the Guadalajara Grill and Michael was once again explaining
how his family doesn't love him because they basically forgot his birthday. I leaned
over to Amy Flood and said, "We should throw Michael a surprise birthday
party so he stops complaining." She
loved the idea and we started scheming.
I was originally thinking that we would have a "Happy Birthday, Michael"
sign, a cake, we'd sing, and that would be it.
Well, I told Lindsey and Sarah about the plan we'd hatched in the
parking lot and they loved it. Loved it
so much that the little gesture I envisioned transformed into a full blown
party.

As the party planning continued we thought of more and more
ways to make fun of Michael. He claims
to be able to do a spot on impression of Elmo, but we have our doubts since
he's too embarrassed to show it to any of us.
Elmo quickly became a party theme.
Sarah made Elmo cupcakes and I got an Elmo piñata.

Pinterest can do anything

Sarah, Lindsey, and Amy with an effigy of Michael

Sarah and Lindsey made a banner that said, "Family Love
Michael" which is a joke from Arrested
Development; Michael's favorite show that he's always quoting.

Save our Bluths!

They also thought it'd be hilarious to throw copious amounts
of confetti when he walked in the door which we of course did. Since yesterday was nowhere near Michael's
actual birthday, he was a little confused when he walked into the room and we
started shouting at him while smothering him in confetti, but he caught on to
what was happening pretty fast.

"I don't know what's happening, but I like it."

Amy Flood was in charge of party games and she did not
disappoint. First, we played a game in
which we had to answer 10 questions about Michael. And then we played "Pin the Michael on
the Audi." Michael loves his Audi as much as a man can love his car so Amy drew something that resembled a car on a poster board and then printed
off a bunch of pictures of Michael's face that we then had to pin on the Audi
while blindfolded. It was a hoot.

Michael wasn't as successful as Josh, who probably cheated

We then went outside to break the piñata. We hadn't planned out this part and didn't
know where would be a good place to attack the piñata. We ended up on the dirt road in front of
their house which, due to all the huge potholes in it, looks more like Iraq
than a street. Josh climbed up a tree
that was covered in spikes and hung the piñata for us. Amy Flood then maliciously knocked off both
of Elmo's legs in one swift swipe.

Elmo is waving good-bye

Amy Flood was ruthless

The night before the party Lindsey and I were talking with Michael and he was once again complaining about his birthday and we both had to try hard to not reveal the awesome secret we were concealing. Michael misspoke and said borthday instead of birthday so we started calling the Sunday night shenanigans Michael's borthday party.

How Michael felt before his borthday party

How he felt after

My original plan for the party was to only have a cake and sing "Happy Birthday," but oddly enough we ended up not doing either of those things. The girls really took my little idea and made it into something super-awesome. Mormons sure know how to have a good time.

And now that Michael can no longer complain about his forgotten birthday, he can move on to complaining about other things like slow drivers, the shabbiness of Tucson, far away parking, and people that care too much about ultimate frisbee.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Kevin and Allison tied the knot yesterday and it was a
wonderful day. Here's how it went down
from my perspective.

The night before the wedding Allison's family had dinner at
a Mexican restaurant so Kevin could meet all his new in-laws. The bride's maids and I were invited
too. I sat with the bride's maids. At one point I was telling them about a girl
I'm friends with in Mexico and said, "And she's really dramatic--because
she's Mexican." At the very moment
I said that our Mexican waiter was leaning in to fill our drinks and obviously
overheard my racist comment. Luckily we
had already eaten so there was no fear of my food being spit in. One of the bride's maids pointed out that he
would probably have agreed with what I said so no damage done.

Allison and her bride's maids/former roommates

Kevin and I shared a hotel room the night before the wedding. We both went to bed pretty early and when it
was still dark I heard an alarm go off.
I was half asleep and knew that Kevin had to get up early for pictures so
I assumed it was his alarm. I said,
"Happy wedding day, Kevin!" to which he responded, "What are you
talking about?" I continued,
"You're getting married today.
Wasn't that your alarm?"
Nope, it turns out it was my cell phone.
Someone texted me at 12:15am to remind me to bring milk to the church
potluck on Sunday. I was bummed that it
wasn't morning yet and that I had to go back to sleep, but more than anything I
didn't understand why someone would text me such a random thing at such an
inconvenient hour.

The next morning Kevin got up on time and left for pictures. Five minutes after he left I was half asleep
again and I thought I heard a knock at the door. I thought I'd just imagined it, but decided
to check just in case. It was Kevin's
mom trying to find him, but he had already left. Bummer, because Allison wasn't going to be
ready on time and now Kevin had to wait alone.
I texted him to let him know that she'd be 30 minutes late (and his mom
called him too, of course) and he texted back, "I was expecting it since I
know her enough to marry her and all."
Kevin is wise.

While the family and friends were sitting in the sealing
room waiting for Kevin and Allison, one of the temple workers very kindly
reminded us to be reverent and that if we need to talk, to do so quietly. I was sitting at the end of a row with all the
bride's maids. One of them leaned over
to me and asked if I would grab her some tissues ('cause girls get weepy at
weddings). I asked her how many and she
said three. I got up and walked over to
the Kleenex box and pulled out three tissues.
The room was very quiet and it felt like everyone was watching me. Not wanting everyone to think that I thought
I was going to cry through three whole
tissues, to removed any suspicion I said, "They're for the
girls." Everyone laughed and I
remembered that I'm very bad at being reverent and quiet.

The sealing was totally awesome and I recorded all my
feelings about it in my journal. Let me
just say here that seeing two of my best friends so happy to get married was
one of the highlights of my life.

And then we took pictures outside and not only was it hot,
but it was incredibly humid because of all the rain from the previous day. It felt like Florida. And the grass was pretty soggy and a lot of
the girls' heels sunk into the ground which made me chuckle on the inside and
made me grateful that my shoes are so big they're basically snowshoes.

One Mexican woman made all the food for the reception and it
was unbelievably delicious. I may have
finished someone else's food who was too full to finish.

The reception included a dance which was surprisingly
fun. Julianne, one of Allison's bride's
maids and a good friend of mine from BYU, really loves Latin dancing and
couldn't wait to dance. I'm not the best
dancer, but Julianne showed me what to do and it ended up being pretty
fun. At one point Julianne was shimmying
a bit and an old woman with a walker came over and said, "Remember, you're
Mormon," implying that her dancing was unbecoming of a Latter-day
Saint. We all got a laugh out of that
and the shimmying didn't stop.

Kevin's cousins decorated his car Mexican style. They attached miniature Mexican flags, wrote
"Viva México" and lots of other Spanish phrases, and even tuned the
radio to a Mexican station so that when Kevin turned on the car it would blast
Mexican music. Before the lovebirds got
into the car the cousins put two huge sombreros on them which made kissing
difficult. I don't know how Allison from
a few years ago pictured driving away from her wedding reception, but I assume
she didn't see herself in a Mexican themed car wearing a sombrero.
Still, she looked very pleased.